Telcos on a Tear

Onward and Upward

The U.S. government market for systems integration services, which stood at $16.1 billion in 1997, should sail to $31 billion by 2004, according to a Frost & Sullivan study set for release next month.

Key drivers in the market are year 2000 conversion work and Internet applications, according to a portion of the report made available by the Mountain View, Calif.-based market research firm.

Overall, the U.S. commercial and government systems integration market is expected to surge from $62.8 billion in 1997 to $176 billion in 2004. Government growth is being restrained by budget cuts, security issues, and slow technology implementation, the report concludes.

Launch Facility Awaits Takeoff

Last December, Washington Technology reported that Virginia Space Flight Center officials were ready to hire a government contractor to operate a new satellite launch facility at Wallops Island.

The announcement, originally set for January, never happened. But the latest word is the deal will be announced by Gov. James Gilmore Sept. 14.

The contract winner will manage the new commercial satellite launch facility on the state's eastern shore, but perhaps more importantly the winner will make a "significant" investment in the project, officials said.

Rumors of contract front-runners abound. They include DynCorp of Reston, Va., and Litton-PRC of McLean, Va.

Kahn Joins Presidential Panel

Robert Kahn, chairman, chief executive officer and president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, has been tapped by the White House to serve on the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee.

The newly named committee offers guidance to the administration on high performance computing and communications and information technology, with emphasis on improving future IT research and development programs. It was originally known as the Advisory Committee on High-Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology, and the Next Generation Internet.

The committee played a key role in garnering congressional support for the president's Next Generation Internet initiative. Kahn, a former member of the United States Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure, received the National Medal of Technology in 1997 for his role in the creation and development of the Internet.

Compaq Feels the Heat

Dell Computer Corp., Round Rock, Texas, raced forward to catch rival Compaq Computer Corp., Houston, during the second quarter as the two battle for a dominant share of the U.S. PC market.

The two are virtually even in the U.S. market, according to International Data Corp., Framingham, Mass. Compaq shipped 1,157,000 units during the quarter for a 14.4 percent market share, and Dell shipped 1,143,000 units, for a 14.3 percent share. But Dell's 72 percent growth rate easily beat Compaq, which grew just 11 percent. Compaq still holds a big lead worldwide with 14.3 percent of the market versus Dell's 9.1 percent.

Internet Group Slams Spam

You certainly won't see it on any list of best sellers. Still, the newest release from the Internet Engineering Task Force, "Don't Spew: A Set of Guidelines for Mass Unsolicited Mailings and Postings (spam)" is bound to be required reading for anyone commercially connected to the Internet.

A product of the task force's Responsible Use of the Network Working Group, the 17-page document dated July 24 and authored by Sally Hambridge and Albert Lunde is found at ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-run-spew-06.txt.

"Don't Spew" details why mass unsolicited e-mail is harmful in the Internetworking community and offers users, system administrators, news administrators, mailing list managers and Internet Service Providers guidelines for dealing with it.

Santa Fe Knows the Way

A new offering from the Census Bureau features a dazzling array of information about the 50 states, the District of Columbia and 315 metropolitan areas, their counties and cities.

Everything is covered, from banking and welfare to receipt of federal funds. For example, the Santa Fe, N.M., metropolitan area ranked No. 1 in total expenditures per capita for federal funds and grants ($13,700). Not surprisingly, in the same category covering states California was numero uno.

You can find the 276-page tome, the "5th Edition of the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book 1997-98," at www.census.
gov/prod/www/titles.html#comp (hint: once on the page, search on the term, compendia). It is stored as a nearly 3 megabyte pdf file.

Cisco Buys Switch Maker

In another move to bolster its voice networking capabilities, Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., announced this week it will acquire Summa Four Inc., a maker of programmable switches, for about $116 million worth of stock.

Manchester, N.H.-based Summa makes switches used in voice mail, calling card and voice-activated services. The acquisition is the latest by Cisco as the company moves to develop products that allow the same network to carry voice, video and data.

Not to be outdone, Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, N.J., said this week that it plans to buy software vendor MassMedia Communications Inc. for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition is designed to give Lucent more firepower in its battle with major data networking vendors, such as Cisco.

Telcos on a Tear

Bell Atlantic Corp., the nation's largest regional phone company, agreed to buy GTE Corp., the biggest independent local and long-distance carrier, for about $55 billion in stock, the companies announced earlier this week.

The merger would create a giant phone company that would control more than a third of the U.S. local phone market and operate in more than 40 states.

Charles Lee, GTE's chairman and chief executive, will share the title of chief executive with Ivan Seidenberg, Bell Atlantic's CEO who will also be president.

The Bell Atlantic-GTE announcement - the latest in the rapidly consolidating telecommunications industry - comes on the heels of an international telephone alliance struck over the weekend by AT&T Corp., the nation's largest long-distance operator, and British Telecommunications PLC. Under that deal, the two companies will jointly sell telecommunications services to businesses around the world. The joint operation, which will generate $11 billion in annual revenue for starters, replaces MCI Communications Corp. with AT&T as BT's American partner.

Because of the sweeping industry consolidation, observers said regulators would take a close look at both deals.